Why we must build direct ties with our audiences — before it’s too late

... we will not convince YouTube, Amazon or Spotify to magically start sharing their troves of audience data with us. Instead, we must emulate what social-content creators have figured out over the past decade: Use the platforms for distribution … but strategically work around them to build direct relationships with individual audience members, then nurture them towards financial support.”

Tom Davidson, the Bellisario Professor of the Practice in Media Entrepreneurship at Penn State University

More than a decade ago, as public television station digital leaders were building the case for what became PBS Passport, Tim Olson of KQED dropped this gem in an email to me:

“It isn’t PBS (or NPR) that is the issue. Netflix, Amazon, Stitcher, iHeart, Apple, Swell, etc., already have ‘our’ audience info. And they are using that data to make better products.”

A dozen years later, even though a couple of those names are out of business (RIP, Stitcher), those words are more accurate than ever.

Spotify knows who you are and where you live; it probably has your bank account information — and intimate knowledge about what you like to listen to. Amazon knows all that and more — right down to the specific products and brands you buy. They — and all the other distribution platforms — use that data to cut traditional media partners out of the value exchange with audiences.

As Tim presciently noted in that 2013 exchange, we’re “… ceding audience relationships to the aggregators. This is what happened to the music industry and Apple, and magazines and Apple, and books and Amazon.” (In fact, I’d add one more example to his list: Video providers and YouTube.)

Most of us in public media still talk about our audiences in big, impersonal blocs — classic Nielsen/Arbitron-speak along the lines of, “We have a seven share in our DMA among women 35-64!”

Our competitors for attention and money know much more and can speak with great authority to potential sponsors: “We have a direct relationship with Joan. She lives on this wealthy block, makes north of $125,000 a year, and buys Seventh Generation detergent (not Tide). How do you want to try to sell to her: targeted video, text or email?”

As I wrote last month, our future depends not on saving federal funding or revitalizing on-air pledges — but on building direct relationships with digital audiences, then building thoughtful digital-first audience- and donor-development flows to convince a percentage of those users to give us money.

Our current strategies are incomplete at best.

It’s all well and good that PBS is working to get content on FAST channels, YouTube and other platforms, and that NPR is aggressively optimizing its roster of podcasts. But without individual-level audience data and the sophisticated understanding of digital fundraising ion to use that data smartly, we’re providing more tools for the platforms to disintermediate us.

No matter how loudly we shout about our mission — or say, “Pretty please?” — we will not convince YouTube, Amazon or Spotify to magically start sharing their troves of audience data with us.

Instead, we must emulate what social-content creators have figured out over the past decade: Use the platforms for distribution … but strategically work around them to build direct relationships with individual audience members, then nurture them towards financial support.

That starts with email addresses — gathered via newsletters, contests, live events or any other engagement opportunities attractive enough to get users to give us their emails.

But if all you do with that email address is throw it in the general pool for spammy donation requests … you’re doing it wrong.

Instead, each audience segment will need customized nurturing campaigns for the topic at hand — separate campaigns for fans of “Wait, Wait,” “Nova” or your local event series about arts and culture.

Yes, this is hard. It requires more work, different skills and vastly more sophistication than an on-air drive that uses grandmotherly guilt (and premiums like station-branded socks or a DVD of the Three Tenors at the Acropolis). But other nonprofit content providers are figuring this out.

The recent Lenfest News Philanthropy Summit and Institute of Nonprofit News’ annual gathering was packed with conference sessions like “Workshopping Email Appeals” and “Grow Your Donor Pipeline Using AI and Data-Driven Tactics.”

Meanwhile, our signature fundraising event, PMDMC, features an “On-Air Drives that Deliver Results” session. No disrespect to the folks who organized that panel — but that title wouldn’t have felt out of place 30 years ago. Unfortunately, it may not be relevant 30 months from now.

As our on-air audiences dwindle and age, our future depends on data, understanding individual audience members and shepherding them toward donations.

I wish we’d done more a decade ago with Passport (which Tim Olson helped shepherd), NPR Carbon and many other efforts. If we started then, we’d know much more about our audience members today.

But there’s an old saying in product development: The best time to start a transformative project was two years ago. The second best time is today.

Tom Davidson is professor of practice in media entrepreneurship and innovation at the Bellisario School of Communications, Penn State University. He previously was a reporter, content leader, general manager and product builder at Tribune, PBS, UNC-TV and Gannett. He can be contacted at tgd@tgdavidson.com.